![]() The new premier will be chosen jointly by the 500 elected MPs in the lower house, plus 250 senate members appointed by Prayut's junta.Īdding to the uncertainty, rumours are already swirling that MFP could be dissolved by court order - the same fate that befell its predecessor Future Forward Party after it performed unexpectedly well in the 2019 elections. Paetongtarn, daughter of party patriarch and exiled billionaire Thaksin, said the two sides have not yet started negotiating the details of a coalition.ĭespite their success, MFP and Pheu Thai still face many hurdles to secure power, due to a junta-scripted 2017 constitution. The party congratulated MFP, saying it had won the right to lead the new government. Pheu Thai, which, including previous iterations, has been the most popular party for two decades, had hoped for a landslide win that would allow it to lead a coalition. This was an issue once deemed untouchable in Thai politics, and which Pheu Thai shied from during the campaign. ![]() The United Thai Nation party, led by Prayut - the former army chief who seized power in a 2014 coup - was a distant third on 4.7 million.īut in a sign of the potential flashpoints ahead, Pita on Monday repeated a promise to reform the lese majeste law that imposes harsh prison terms for insulting the monarchy. With ballots counted from 99 percent of polling stations, Election Commission data showed MFP on 14.1 million in the popular vote followed by Pheu Thai on 10.8 million. "I feel like my country has (hope) for the future," Beam, 29, a personal assistant and MFP voter who took part in the 2020 protests, told AFP on Monday. The newest force in Thai politics, MFP channelled the energy of youth-led pro-democracy protests in 2020 in an election campaign pitting a young generation yearning for change against the conservative old guard embodied by 69-year-old ex-general Prayut. MFP has vowed to reform Thailand's strict royal insult laws, putting it on course for a collision with the kingdom's powerful royalist-military establishment. "Today is a new day, and hopefully it is full of sunshine and hope."īetween them, MFP and Pheu Thai are expected to take 292 out of 500 seats in the lower house, with the two main army-allied parties mustering just 76 seats in total.īut in a kingdom where coups and court orders have often trumped the ballot box, there are fears that the result may yet be thwarted. It was the right timing, people have been through enough," he said in English. "The sentiment of the air has changed, it was right. Pita said he had called Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Pheu Thai's lead prime minister candidate, to congratulate her on her campaign and invite her to join the coalition. "We are ready to form the government," he added, vowing to be a "prime minister for all". ![]() "I am Pita Limjaroenrat, the next prime minister of Thailand," he told reporters at the MFP headquarters in Bangkok. MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat said he would seek to build a six-party coalition including Pheu Thai, which said it was ready to join, though negotiations of the details have not yet begun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |